Arts, Criticism, and the City

Goodfellas

My Dinner with Sontag, my final assignment for our Shadbolt Seminar, is a short play mimicking the style and form of the 1981 Louis Malle film My Dinner with Andre. In the film, Wallace ‘Wally’ Shawn (a playwright and actor), and Andre Gregory (a theatrical director) play themselves in conversation at a Manhattan restaurant where they discuss their opinions and their wide ranging experiences with theatre and life. Andre has much more dialogue than Wally, and as the film progresses, Wally notices their philosophical differences—that Andre is very experimental whereas he is more drawn to comfort and ease. Very little action takes place; a server visits periodically to take orders and bring food, but otherwise the two simply remain seated and talking—and yet the film is very engrossing to watch. In 1999, film critic Roger Ebert wrote after seeing it a second time, that he was “impressed once more by how wonderfully odd this movie is, how there is nothing else like it. It should be unwatchable, and yet those who love it return time and again, enchanted.”

As taken as one may be with the film and its surprising success despite its unusual style, the format does suffer somewhat from weaknesses; Andre talks too often and for too long without any conversational banter interjected by Wally. It could benefit from giving more equal weight to each character’s dialogue, the inclusion of women, or to have a third character moderate the discussion somewhat instead of having Wally’s character talk internally to himself in a voiceover. I have attempted to amend these imperfections in my play by having the conversation take place between two female GLS graduate students who are dining in a restaurant discussing art and theatre who are periodically interrupted by their server, who, unbeknownst to them at first, is Susan Sontag.

In My Dinner with Sontag, the amount of dialogue is more evenly weighted between the two student characters Andrea (named after Andre) and Wallace (Wally). There are less long monologues and more banter between the two characters to help the audience maintain interest. As they dine, the students debate criticism and interpretation in art and theatre, considering a Jeff Wall light box we saw at the Audain Art Museum, Martin Scorcese’s Goodfellas, and a work by 17th century painter Caravaggio. They refer to comments that have been made in our Shadbolt Seminar by Uno Langmann and Max Wyman and also quote Walter Pater in the process. When Sontag comes by to take orders or deliver food (or eventually when she just brazenly sits and eats with the students), she quotes from her essay “Against Interpretation” and attempts to guide Andrea and Wallace into a different kind of dialogue that seeks luminousness and celebrates form rather than symbolic interpretation. At this urging from her, the students’ conversation branches out to refer to work by artists playing with form: Broadway theatre director Sam Gold and New York Magazine’s senior art critic Jerry Saltz, while the stage directions begin to simultaneously mirror the experimental form being discussed (although like in the film, the character of Wallace in the play ultimately does tend towards preferring comfort instead of artistic risk- taking). Sontag’s insertion in the play as a third character and a guiding voice is an attempt to shape it into an artistic Socratic dialogue as well as an act of interpretation and creative critique in itself as a play.

Few filmmakers have as much skill and cinematic vocabulary to marry the technical aspects of film with storytelling as well as Martin Scorsese. This isn’t training a camera on actors working through a script. The movement of the camera, shot composition, ordering and pacing, sound and soundtrack all contribute to the storytelling and to the audience experience of it. When the camera zooms up on Ray Liotta’s face just before he opens the thumping trunk in the opening scene, this shifting viewpoint contributes as much to communicate his unease as his expression. And because we are seeing through the unnatural zooming eye of the camera, we feel that unease too.

Most of us train ourselves to ignore the technical, and just let it work its magic on us. We’ve gotten good at adopting the camera’s point of view, even though the way it “sees” is radically different than the way we do. We don’t only suspend our disbelief with regards to the content of movies, we suspend our knowledge of physics, of eye movement and focus, of how sound carries. But if you want to see the slight of hand, the wizard behind the screen, Scorsese’s films – and Goodfellas in particular – are worth studying.

Goodfellas starts in media res at the climax or turning point of the story (even if we don’t yet know this). We flashback to the beginning of Henry Hill’s involvement with organized crime. The flashback is very much a cinematic device – it’s not nearly as effective in any other medium – one dated title card, a change in mise-en-scene, et voila! We are back in the past. The nostalgic sets, costumes and props, music, pacing and camerawork help us to become seduced by this criminal lifestyle along with Henry and Karen. We’re just as impressed as Karen when Henry leads us through one massive dramatic tracking shot through the backdoor and kitchen of the Copacabana, sweeping us down to a last minute front row table. Every shot, every sequence contributes to the overall narrative and taking us on the journey through it. The excitement and energy are enticing and even with the shades of danger and violence, we can still sympathize with Hill’s seduction. But eventually and inevitably, the danger becomes too real and too big to ignore. I’m always impressed by storytellers who manage to make us care and sympathize with characters who are beyond flawed. We shouldn’t root for Henry, Karen, Tommy, Jimmy or Paulie, but we do anyway.

Is it the scene where Henry’s father beats him that draws us in? Karen’s cool plucky spirit when dressing Henry down for standing her up? Tommy’s “How am I funny?” monologue that sets up his inevitable reaction to Billy Batts’ teasing? Seeing Jimmy as infinitely cool through young Henry’s eyes? Meeting Tommy’s mom (adorably played by Marty’s own mom)? The way they all relate to food? (I’m still inspired by Paulie and his razor blade method every time I’m slicing garlic.)

There is so much working on us here. I’d be remiss not to talk about the soundtrack – Scorsese has a knack of integrating popular music into his works. I challenge you to ever listen to the piano outro to Layla again without your mind immediately pulling up images and scenes from Goodfellas.

I first saw this movie when it came out on video, back when I was 13 or 14. I loved it then, even if I had no concept of how or why it was working on me. Even as a 14 year old, I knew this film got robbed by the Oscars, losing out to the forgettable white saviour syndrome vehicle, Dances with Wolves. 26 years later, I’m still mad about it. Madder even. Because my appreciation of the technical and narrative excellence of this film only grows with every re-watch. I’m training myself to see more of the sleight of hand, the artistry, each time.